Te'oma: The Riddle Twin
by ArtemisEpona
Summary: There in Merope's womb beats the heart of a child . . . and there also lies quietly against that heart the still heart of another child . . . dead.
1. Chapter 1 The Dark Princes

**Chapter 1: Te'oma: The Dark Princes**

Rain gurgled in the slick and slimy gutters of the dark streets of Little Hangleton as Merope sloshed heavily along, her round belly jutting forward. Her steps were heavy and slow, and she could barely lift her feet. She struggled to breathe above the pain of her contractions, and once or twice thought she felt the fierce beating of a heart that was not her own. Ten months pregnant -- was it possible? The Healer at Saint Mungos had been baffled and then furious when he found she'd had no insurance nor any money. "This isn't a free clinic, Madame Crow!" he'd cried and called for security to escourt her out.

Madame Crow was the name she gave every stranger who asked, and always, it seemed, every stranger was calling for security. Once she'd been arrested in the mall for attempting to shoplift shoes. Her own were worn away to nothing, and she dragged along the streets these days barefoot.

Merope's bare feet dragged along the smooth red bricks of the street and finally could bear her weight no longer. Her thin and knobby knees wobbled badly, and she sank down right onto the curb, sobbing hard as the rain plastered her lank and colorless hair to her head. She wouldn't be in this mess if she hadn't been a fool. What was she thinking when she stopped feeding Tom Riddle the love potion?

Merope pulled out her long-abandoned wand and prodded it at her bare and sore feet, trying with all her might to make shoes appear there. She sobbed afresh when nothing happened and jabbed the wand harder. "_Delimea! Delimea_!" she cried, stabbing the wand at her filthy feet, but nothing happened. She hadn't been able to use her powers since Tom left . . .

"Young lady? Are you alright?"

Merope looked dismally around. A rather tall old woman was frowning down at her fearfully, as if she feared that Merope was ill or mental. Merope was used to those looks; she got them all the time -- especially from Muggles. They all thought she was crazy, and why shouldn't they? A young pregnant girl moping around the street in rags, jabbing a stick at her bare feet, muttering and sobbing to herself?

"I didn't love him," Merope wailed miserably, "but I _thought_ I did! I really did! And I thought I could -- could make him love _me_!" and she tossed her head back and wailed loudly.

The old woman glanced fearfully about, as if she thought the neighbors would gossip, and then leaned over Merope and said kindly, "Here, child, take my handkerchief and wipe your face. You look like you've been sleeping in the mud!"

"I -- I have!" hiccoughed Merope. She struggled with weak and fumbling fingers to wipe her face, then gasped and dropped the handkerchief all together, clutching her swollen belly.

"Dear me! Are you in labor!" cried the old woman in alarm. "Here! Here! You must get up and walk -- it will help with the pain -- "

The old woman bent to help Merope to her feet, and Merope, still clutching her belly and moaning, attempted a faint and ugly smile of gratitude.

The old woman looked pityingly intothe girl'spale and dull face and said kindly, "You're shaking like a leaf! Come! Come! I shall take you home with me -- " and together, they turned down the street.

The old woman was strangely strong and agile for one such an age, and stopped many times with a patient smile when Merope would bend her back and moan.

"It's trying to be born right here in the street, isn't it?" she said good-naturedly when Merope's knees gave away and she squated there on the pavement. "But come! Come! Let Hilda take care of you!"

Merope leaned on the old woman's arm, and when they arrived at the house at last, she collapsed on the warm flower-scented carpet right at the door. The old woman gave a soft scream and knelt beside Merope to feel the girl's pulse.

"My, my, I thought it had killed you!" she shrilled, and to Merope's amazment, removed a willow branch from the bossom of her blouse and waved it. A stretcher appeared beneath Merope, and she was lifted from the floor and carried to the couch, where she was deposited with great gentility from the stretcher onto a pile of cushions.

"You're -- you're -- " gasped Merope in surprise around the pain of the contractions.

"A witch," said the old woman, and her eyes twinkled. "Didn't think there were any of those in Little Hangleton, did you?" She nodded briskly when she saw Merope's confusion and straightened the cushions, "I keeps to meself."

Mere minutes later, Merope was astonished to find that her contractions had ceased all together. The child in her womb was still, as if listening, and she felt its heartbeat again, this time more softly. The tiny drumming of it echoed, as if mutiplied by the ragged sound of her own breathing: there were two.

"Where -- where are you going?" Merope moaned after the old woman, who had disappeared from her sight beyond the couch into another room. She could hear pots and pans clanging and, a moment later, a kettle whistle.

"Made you some tea, deary, drink up," the old woman said, returning and setting a tray down on the polished wood of the coffee table. She sat opposite Merope in a sofa chair with a pleasant grown. "There now," she said in delight as she watched Merope, "The contractions have stopped, haven't they?"

"Did -- did you . . .?" stammered the girl.

"No," said the old woman at once. "You did it. You don't want that child to be born, do you?" She narrowed her eyes suddenly, and Merope quailed beneath the old witch's stare. "Did something a bit . . . unethical?"

Merope could not meet the old woman's gaze. Instead, she nodded mutely and stared at her cup of tea.

"Well, drink up," the old woman fussed, "and don't look so glum! Is it for _me _to judge your wrongdoin's? I only wondered, tis all . . ."

But Merope suddenly felt like confessing and, in a rush to get the words out of her mouth, gulped the scalding tea down too fast. It burned her throat like liquid fire, and she gasped more than said, "I gave a man a love potion!"

The old woman tisked. "And that same man got you with child, did he not? Of _course _he did, " she said harshly, not waiting for Merope to answer. "And now what's happened? You didn't give him his daily dose?"

Merope hung her head, "I felt so bad! I -- I started to realize that -- that he didn't really love me for -- for me. . . . "

"At least you realized it at all," said the old woman, and her voice was less harsh. "Most people never do. So then what, might I ask? He wised up and ran off?" Merope nodded mutely and the old woman gave a harsh laugh, "He was a wise one."

Stung, Merope glowered at her tea and said nothing. At least, in the end, she had done the right thing. She'd been very young when she'd given Tom the love potion, in desperate need of love and adventure and romance. She'd spent her entire life in that sad little hovel known as "the nutter's place" in the Little Hangleton. Was it so wrong that she'd wanted someone to love her?

"It isn't wrong to want to be loved," answered the old woman, as if Merope had spoken outloud. "If I'm not mistaken, you're that Guant girl -- the one everyone thought deaf and dumb. Merope, isn't it?"

Again, Merope nodded mutely.

"Well, Merope, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be loved. But when you force someone to love you, when you take away their free will . . . do you see what I'm saying? _And don't nod_," she added sharply before the girl could carry on mutely.

Merope lifted her head and stared at the old woman with her colorless, crossed eyes, "Yes, madame, I understand. I know now that what I felt wasn't -- it wasn't love. And what he felt was only -- "

"Infatuation," finished the old woman, and Merope bowed her head. "But it seems to me, Merope, that a child so friendless as you should _want_ to let her child be born, don't you think?"

"_No_," Merope sobbed. "I can't raise it and let it grow up thinking -- what if one day it asked me who its father was? What will I tell it?"

"The truth," said the old woman, narrowing her eyes.

"But what if my son or daughter hated me? I couldn't -- I couldn't live . . ."

"You speak as if you wanted to die!"

"I do!" sobbed Merope to her lap, clenching her pale little fists. "I do! I do!"

"Be still, child!" rasped the old woman in disgust. "How selfish, how thoughtless, how -- " she stopped, seeing Merope's astonishment, and her voice grew softer. "You can't stop this child's life because you made a few mistakes in your own," she said gently. "This child is your chance to know love. Don't you want that, Merope?"

Merope shook her head, staring at her empty tea cup, "Not . . . not any more."

"Then what do you want?" demanded the old woman. "Will you give up on life so easily? Answer me!"

Merope looked around again in astonishment, wondering why the old witch was so concerned.

"I -- I don't know what I want anymore, madame, only that . . ." her eyes wandered to her lap again and she muttered, ". . . that I want to die."

"_Disgusting_," spat the old witch. "Young people today! I should have left you on the street like everyone else. Perhaps that child there in your womb should die too -- I see bad things growing out if because of your weakness."

Merope's head jerked up. "Bad things?" she whispered, her voice trembling, and her thin, gray hand absently carressed her womb. "What bad things?"

"Well, a bitter person can make a lot of bad things happen, don't you imagine?" snapped the old woman, as if Merope's question was stupid. "And that child will be a bitter person -- think about it! If you let yourself die, he'll grow up somewhere wondering why his father left him and why his mother died, wondering why no one cared enough to stay around and care for him . . . Now granted, that's not always the case . . . but then, there's a darkness rising from your eyes that makes me shudder . . ." and her voice ended on a low, trembling note.

"What are you suggesting?" Merope whispered, her voice steel. "That I _kill _my own child!" she shrieked.

The old witch stared at her incredulously, "_Now_ I've seen it all! First you confess to me about drugging a man with a love potion, then about wanting to commit suicide and abandon your own son, and now you would berate _me_ for trying to rid the world of a great evil -- " the old woman caught herself and stopped, not meeting Merope's eye.

"How do you know my child is male?" Merope demanded, her pale eyes glittering with the dull blue fire one sees at the center of a flame. Now it was her turn to yell, "_Answer me_!"

The old witch slowly raised her eyes, and Merope did not like her hard, cruel smile, "True Seers are very rare in this world, and I am one of them. I have Seen what those children would become if they were to live -- and all at your doing!"

"You _knew _I'd be on that corner . . .!" Merope said slowly. "You _knew_ where I'd be, and you took me in to insure the destruction of my child!" she accused, rising to her feet.

"Your _children_," corrected the old witch with a frightening sharktooth smile. "You needn't glare at _me_, you who would so recklessly abandon your own children! I'm trying to _help _the world in destroying them, but you're bringing down an age of war -- just by letting yourself die!"

Merope stifled the sob rising in her throat and swallowed, "That's nonsense! How can one child bring about an age of war? You're just some crazy old woman who's lonely and likes to frighten poeple -- "

"Merope . . ." scolded the old witch, smiling her frightening smile, " . . . do you _really_ believe that?"

In all honesty, Merope really believed that the old woman was a Seer, that indeed she had brought Merope to her home with the intention of killing her unborn child because of some hairbrained prophetsy . . . but her fate would _not _be ruled by some old witch! Her crossed eyes traveled slowly to her empty tea cup, and she clutched her womb with a low, frightened moan.

"One is dead already," said the old woman, still smiling. "At least I succeededin ridding the world of _one_ Dark Prince -- good luck to whoever has to rid the world of the other!" she called after Merope as the girl dashed from the house. "And come back if you change your mind!"

Merope waddled into the street, her panicked breathing overriding her thoughts. She was muddled and sleeply, and she knew suddenly that the drugged tea was having its effect on her as well. Would it kill her as it had one of her children? No, the old woman had wanted to keep her alive to rid the world of the supposed Dark Prince see kept even now in her womb . . . certainly she wouldn't die . . .

"_Mother_," Merope sobbed, the rain plastering her lanky hair to her face once more as she paused on the curve, moaning and crying in childlike confusion. "I want my _mother_ . . ." she cried, and sank down on the pavement and into darkness.


	2. Chapter 2 Merope Dreams

**Chapter 2: Merope Dreams**

As the drug made her feverish mind swim, Merope's thoughts drifted in and out of sleep, and she heard, as if from a great distance, her own shrieking laughter. She was sitting on the edge of a large bed -- _their_ bed -- the one she and Tom had shared together in France.

They'd run away to Monte Carlo and had rented a lovely flat near the sea. They often walked the beach together, hand in hand, and the locals remarked pleasantly just how happy the handsome young man and his homely wife seemed.

"Must be under a love spell, that one," chortled a nearby fisherman to his companion, and the two of them snickered as they watched Merope amd Tom stroll by.

But now, Merope was sitting on the edge of their large and lavish bed, leaning back on her hands as Tom massaged her feet, and now she threw her head back and laughed. The wind had given her pale cheeks color, her lanky hair was decorated with flowers, and in those happy months she had spent with Tom, there had been a certain cheerful fire in Merope's crossed eyes. With Tom, she was almost beautiful. Almost.

"_Don't,_ Tom! You_ know_ my foot is ticklish there!" Merope shrilled, squirming, and Tom smiled at her mischeviously and suddenly pounced upon her and pinned her to the bed. They laughed together, rolling over on the sheets until Merope was lying on top, and Tom smiled up at her and stroked her stringy, colorless hair.

"Tell me," Tom said, laughing, " . . . how did we meet again?" and he frowned as he strained to recall, his lips still wearing that horrible vacant smile.

He was so handsome Merope thought her heart would break as she watched him struggle to remember the lie she had told him, a meeting that had never taken place.

She hated that emptiness, the shell he seemed to have become once he'd drank the love potion. She wanted _him _there, the _real _Tom, loving her and desiring her of his own free will . . . and she twinged with a pang of regret, wishing she had thought of this before. Yet she hadn't imagined it would be this way. She thought love potions made people . . . well . . ._ love_. But Tom Riddle was not in love with her, but infatuated. This wasn't the real Tom, but the potion speaking through him. He was a mindless shell through whom magic made itself heard.

"I was working in my father's garden . . ." began Merope, her voice trembling now. It was becoming harder and harder to lie to this man, this creature who had been so blindly obsessed with a young woman even yet he still did not know. She cringed as his empty, helpless eyes stared up at her like the glass eyes of a doll and could not go on with her story.

"Yes?" Tom pressed, looking worried. "Merope -- what is it?"

"No, no, this is wrong -- WRONG!"

Merope shook her head and backed off of Tom's chest and into a corner of the room. She kept a wooden chest there, locked, in which there was a hideous supply of her own batch of love potion. The cauldron was sitting peacefully within the chest, its black lid clasped down tight, and she hefted it in her arms and turned to the door.

"What is that?" Tom demanded in confusion, sitting up on the bed, and then angrily, "_Where are you going_?" He rushed at her and, with sudden violence, barred the door with his body. "You can't go anywhere without me, remember?"

Merope stared up at him, her heart pumping with sorrow and fear. She would end this today, and he would realize who she was, that she was ugly, and that he did not love her. He would break her heart all over again, just as the day she had first seen him with that other girl, and she would be left here alone in Monte -- ugly, unloved, and unwanted.

She hesitated, wondering whether or not she should lock the potion away again and forget that she'd ever felt guilty, but his empty, glassy eyes stared mindlessly down at her with a hopeless comical sort of ecstacy and she strengthened her resolve. He was pathetic this way and suddenly repulsive, and she realized that she was exactly the same.

"The potion made me see myself for what I was," Merope whispered, her crossed eyes growing distant as she spoke to herself.

Tom had a sickening, puppy-dog expression, "I don't want you to ever leave me! I'm coming with you -- let me carry that -- " and he jostled the cauldron of pink fluid out of her arms and into his own. "Now -- where is it we're going, darling?"

Darling. Merope flinched. What names would he call her when the potion wore off?

"Remember that high cliff overlooking the sea, love?" she said lightly, twisting her fingers.

Tom smiled mechanically. "I remember . . ." he said, and his eyes traced her body up and down hungrily.

Merope shuddered and turned away. The cliff was the first place they'd really been intimate and, therefore, the best place for her to destroy the potion. He'd been wild and frightening then, a hungry animal that could not control its urges, and she closed her eyes, trying hard to forget that night.

The love potion was disposed of that very day, and the lovers returned to their flat together. Tom was very much still obsessed with Merope and was vaguely puzzled by the girl's increasingly dismal, even wary manner as the days progressed.

"What the _deuce_ is the matter with you?" he demanded one night from behind a newspaper. "You sulk around as if you're waiting for me to strike you!"

"I -- I'm sorry . . ." Merope muttered, fumbling to pour the tea and sloshing it over the table.

"Let it be! I'll clean it up!" Tom snapped, looking at her in bewilderment. "Everyday I see it more and more, Merope. You seem less and less like the woman I married!"

Merope's lip curled, and she shrank into herself, crossing her arms over her chest. "And what was the woman you married like?" she asked timidly.

Tom paused and stared off dreamily, "Ah, she was beautiful! Beautiful! Just perfect! So cheerful and loving . . . There was nothing wrong about her -- nothing!" He looked at Merope and cupped her face tenderly, "What happened to her, darling, hmm? You seem so . . . _gloomy_ lately and . . . _gray_."

Merope gave a small phony cough, "The weather in Monte doesn't agree with me, I'm afraid. That's all."

"Then we must leave at once," Tom cried, springing up as if Merope's life depended on moving. "You pack the laundry, I'll ring up my agent -- "

"No, wait, Tom!" Merope cried, her heart in her throat. "Please! Sit down."

Tom stared at her, unblinking, and obeyed.

"Then what do you want to do?" he said earnestly, the puppy-dog face making another appearance.

"I want . . ." Merope stopped uncertainly and bit her lip, glancing across the room at the closed door to their bedroom.

"Oh. . . . I know what you want!" cried Tom mischeviously. He sprang up again, scooped Merope up in his arms, and kissed her neck where he knew her to be ticklish; Merope laughed shrilly inspite of herself. Then he sprinted off the to the bedroom with her in his arms and shut the door.

Merope awoke the next morning when someone ripped the sheets from her naked body. She shivered and clutched blindly at nothing, then opened her eyes to see Tom towering over her, wrapped in the blanket and incensed.

"Who the hell _are_ you?" Tom demanded. He stared around the room wildly, "And where am I? Why am I in bed with you -- and --" He lifted his hand to the sunlight streaming in through the windows and gaped at it incredulously, "is this a _wedding ring_?" He stared at Merope accusingly, "Are we _married_?"

Merope cringed under his shouts. She couldn't answer. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out, and her body felt rigid and frozen with terror.

"WELL?" exploded Tom, his eyes popping.

He looked very handsome, like a Greek god, standing there with the white sheet wrapped partially around his body and his lustrous black hair mussed and falling into his eyes. He'd always been so so handsome, and the sight of his beautiful eyes glaring at her made tears start to her eyes.

Tom began to pace the room feverishly, talking loudly to himself. "I've been drugged! Drugged! No _wonder_ I'm seeing five of everything! You!" he shouted, turning to the bed and jabbing an accusing finger at Merope. "You drugged me and married me, didn't you?" and when she didn't answer, "DIDN'T YOU?"

Merope still could not speak. She felt as if her lungs had ceased to draw air. Why, why, why had she destroyed the love potion? She'd been so happy. But he had not, she reminded herself. He had not been in his right mind: it wasn't fair, it wasn't right.

"Wait a second . . ." Tom whispered, his handsome eyes narrowing. "I know you! You're that ugly little ragamuffin from the Guant house! That crazy old man's daughter!"

Merope cringed and covered her ears, her face contorted. She heard Tom rush at her and screamed as he dragged her up by the hair and shook her.

"Answer me, or so help me god -- "

"It's true! It's true!" Merope sobbed, feeling sick and dizzy from the shaking. Her scalp was on fire and torn and bleeding in places, she knew, and he threw her to the floor in disgust.

"A hideous scandal," Tom muttered, panicking, as he wiped the scent of her skin from his hands with distaste. He went to his scattered clothing and began dressing with great haste. "The whole town will be talking! I have -- have to set things right -- You! What day is it?" he spat at Merope, and when she told him, his eyes popped again.

"You've been drugging me for this long?" he snarled at Merope, towering over her where she cowered on the floor. "You sneaking harlot! See if I don't have you arrested for this!" His teeth flashed and spit flew from his mouth, and suddenly he was not so handsome anymore but dangerous and wild.

Merope pulled the neglected bedsheet around her naked body and crawled slowly from the room.

"No, you don't!" Tom yelled, going after her in his disheveled clothing, and he grabbed her and yanked her back by the hair again.

Merope heard her own animal grunts of pain as he jerked her back and shoved her roughly onto the bed. He pulled her head back by the hair, forcing her to look at him.

"You're going to pay for this," he growled at her, shaking her by the hair. "And you'll never be able to show your ugly face in Little Hangleton again!"

She could apparate. She could disappear . . . but if she performed magic in front of a Muggle it would mean with wizarding police on her back as well . . . Merope would have to make due and escape the Muggle police the best she could with what little powers were left to her. After she'd destroyed the love potion, she'd watched with intense guilt as Tom slowly came back to himself, and her powers had been draining away with the overwhelming feeling.

On the pavement in Little Hangleton, Merope stirred in anguish, willing herself to wake and let go of the disturbing dreams that recalled so clearly her memory of her last partings with Tom. She jerked back into the waking world with a soft scream and was mildly astonished to find herself lying on her back in the rain, her arms and legs spreadeagle.

"But it was so real . . ." Merope muttered to herself, trembling. "So real!"

"Miss? Miss!"

Merope looked around to see a police officer standing over her, frowning the same frown she'd seen so many others wear when confronting her. He was wondering if she was crazy or ill or gone into labor or all three. Merope struggled to sit up on her elbows and begged the officer to get her someplace warm. She could read the sympathy in his green eyes as he drank in her ugly, sullen features and played it to her advantage, begging that he carry her because, oh, her feet ached so terribly . . .

"We can't keep you at the station, ma'am," the officer told her once they were driving against the rain, "but there's an orphanage that might give you room and board until the baby's born. Would you like that?" He looked at her in the rearview mirror, flashing eyes of appeal.

"That sounds perfect," Merope called from the back of the car, her bare and blistered feet touching with pleasure the cool pane of one of the windows. And by perfect, she meant the perfect place to die.


	3. Chapter 3 His Brother's Keeper

**Chapter 3: His Brother's Keeper**

"He's as weak as a new born chick," remarked one of the women who worked at the orphanage over the pale and solemn lump that was baby Tom Riddle Jr. "But did you see the way he smiled when Martha nearly dropped him?" she asked her younger, frightened companion. "He looked at her darkly, as if he knew she was afraid, and _cackled_ -- can you believe it? _Cackled _like some evil old person three times his age!"

The woman beside her shivered and nodded, shrinking away as the tiny child's cold eyes shifted to her face. "I can believe it, ma'am. He looked at Mary so just the other day when she'd seen him strike another child. We still don't know how he'd gotten that knife from the kitchen, but it came within an inch of slicing Baby Alice in halves."

The two women peered at Baby Tom in mingled curiosity and fear, and the younger one, who held his bottle of formula, offered it now with a shaking hand.

"Don't let him see you shake so, Lisa," muttered the older woman out of the side of her mouth. "Our fear gives him his power. Watch and learn -- " and she took the bottle from Lisa's fumbling grasp and offered it with a confident thrustto the child.

Baby Tom watched the woman warily and did not move, but as she continued to hold the bottle out to his pudgy hands, his black eyes bore unblinkingly into hers. They were cold eyes for a baby, as dark as swirling pools of blackness between the stars and underlined with a disturbingly intelligent fire.

Lisa gave a low moan and trembled, backing behind her older companion. "He's doin' the stare, miss! Mrs. Racket -- he's doin' the stare again!" she cried, twisting her bony fingers anxiously.

"Hush, Lisa!" Mrs. Racket snapped out of the corner of her mouth, her own blue eyes staring hard into the child's. "Take it! Take it, you little brat!" she hissed under her breath.

It seemed immediately upon Mrs. Racket's words, the most extraordinary series of events happened. Months and even years later, every employee at the orphanage will argue how it came about, but what happened was this: the bottle of warm formula exploded in Mrs. Racket's hand, creating not only a pool in the woman's large bossom, but a great pool on the floor. Lisa gave a terrible scream and lept like a cat into the air. She came down against her shocked and rigid companion, and the two women went into a sort of mad dance as they scurried to keep from slipping in the mess of spilt formula. Mrs. Racket's flailing arms smacked a nearby lamp, which fell from its small stand and shattered in the spilt formula. As Baby Tom gurgled happily, Lisa's eyes fell on the lamp's cord in the nearby socket on the wall.

"Mrs. Racket -- ! Look out!" she screeched, seeing the blue sparks that shot along the cord there.

Mrs. Racket caught her balance at last against a flailing, sputtering Lisa, and the two women had half a second to watch the blue sparks speed up the lamp's cord before they were electrocuted. In the light of their frying bodies, Baby Tom shrieked with laughter and clapped his hands until both women laid dead in the pool of spilt formula, the lamp plug sparking and their bodies blackened and burnt.

Tom Riddle Jr.'s life in the orphange was surrounded by these strange and gruesome incidents. It was common knowledge that everyone found him particularily evil without restraint or reason -- and yet he was so charming and polite at the same time! Had he been outright vindictive, it would have been easier to suspect and even to understand him. But his gentlemanly airs won with unease the respect, if not the love, of all surrounding him. And even those who feared him most could not help but remark with frank admiration how charming that little Tom Riddle was.

"No one is _born_ evil, Pastor," argued Mrs. Dean, the head woman at the orphanage.

Tom Jr. listened darkly outside of the door, his thin lips pressed angrily together and his black eyes hard. Mrs. Dean was speaking about him to Pastor Givings for the umpteenth time, complaining that he was possessed and all such nonsense, that he needed to be examined by doctors and sent to a home. The pastor was very weary of these conversations and had made it his business ever since his first meeting with young Tom to stay as far from the orphanage as he could.

" . . . people act wicked because they're _made _that way," Mrs. Dean was saying, and Tom could hear her pacing the room with her fat, heavy feet. "People are usually mean because they're hurting inside. But what reason have we given this boy to be unkind to us? We've done nothing -- _nothing, I tell you!_ -- but be kind to him! And yet _still_ he plagues us with -- with these _dark occurances_! Why, the other day little Tracy Peters offered him some of her milk at lunch time -- heaven knows why when the boy's such a _foul_ little demon -- and then later . . ." she lowered her voice and continued in an astonished whisper, "later we found her favorite kitten's head in -- well . . . you get the idea. . . ."

Tom heard Pastor Givings stirr uncomfortably, then heard the rustle ofthe old man'srobes as he rose from his chair, "I fully appreciate your concern for this boy, Mrs. Dean, but as pastor of this precinct -- and pastor _alone _-- there really isn't much I can do!"

"There is!" Mrs. Dean cried quickly. "You can take this boy off our hands! Lord knows no person in their _right mind_ would adopt him -- why not take him to the monastery? Let him grow up there in peace, and leave us in peace as well?"

Pastor Givings gave a low weary groan.

"See what you've done!" Tom hissed, frowning, it seemed, at thin air.

A moment later, a gust of wind swept his hair and there stood before Tom the very duplicate of himself. The only difference between Tom and this new boy was this other Tom was not solid and full of color and life, but pale and silvery and insubstantial.

"What _we've_ done," corrected the pale and silvery Tom. "I didn't capture that kitten on my own, you know."

"I only did it because you pestered me so," Tom snapped, frowning. "Tracy was mindless and naive -- we could have used her. But you scared her off!"

The silvery Tom smiled slowly, an evil grin. "Why do you bother lying to me, Tom?" he taunted, floating on the spot. "You didn't want to hurt Tracy's kitten because you liked her. You still like her. You can't hide your secrets from me -- I know what goes on in that dark little mind of yours."

Tom scowled, "You were jealous! That's why you did it!"

The grin fell from the silvery Tom's lips and he glowered at Tom, floating sullenly on the spot, "I saw the way you looked at her. You looked as if you liked her and wanted to make her your pet -- a sort of mindless companion." He shook his head and his dark silvery hair shifted, "_I'm _your only companion, Tom. You only have me. Me! Don't I always look after you, Tom?"

Tom turned away. "I can look after myself. You aren't my keeper!" he snarled, starting for his bedroom.

"We were destined to be great princes," the silvery Tom said loudly before his living, breathing counterpart could stalk off. "You and I. And I will yet see that dream fulfilled. You don't remember what happened that night -- of _course _you don't -- the night that old witch murdered me in our mother's womb. But _I_ remember every moment of it. I remember the twisting pain, the agony, the helplessness. . . ." His voice rose to an angry growl, and Tom turned to him again, his hands shoved in his pockets. "That old witch spoke of our fate, Tom, yours and mine. Together, we shall be dark princes -- the darkest princes of all time!"

Tom merely watched his silvery companion shrewdly, his black emotionless eyes narrowed, his entire body still. It was the stare that the women at the orphange were so frightened of, the caluculating, evil, heart-stopping stare.

"You will delve no lies from me, Brother," the silvery Tom whispered, hovering on the spot. "I only speak the truth."

"And am I truly to be a dark prince then?" Tom whispered and then burst suddenly, "TELL THE TRUTH!"

His silvery counterpart did not flinch, but smiled slowly again and said, "_We_ are to be dark princes, Tom. _We_."

"You?" spat Tom, his lip curling. "You're dead. Dead people are weak, helpless, nothing."

The silvery Tom gave an identical sneer, his pale eyes firing with the same blue flame his mother's colorless eyes had once possessed.

"If I am indeed a dark prince," continued Tom, smiling nastily, "then you, as a _dead _person, are under me. You will obey me properly, like any faithful doppelganger should!" He went on, his voice rising, "AND DO ALL THAT I TELL YOU TO DO AND NOT TO DO!"

The silvery Tom snarled and disappeared in a whirl of fierce wind that whipped again at Tom's black hair, and Tom looked around to see Mrs. Dean and Pastor Givings standing, appalled, in the doorway.

"You see that?" hissed Mrs. Dean to the pastor out of the corner of her mouth. "Most unnatural -- really shocking." Then she added loudly to Tom, "What are you doing here, boy?"

"I could hear you, old woman," Tom sneered. "Just because I'm a kid dosen't mean I'm deaf!" He glowered at her, his hands thrust in his pockets, and then stared at Pastor Givings, "And what are you doing here, old man? I thought you'd shriveled up and died by now!"

The two adults merely stared at him with their mouths open. Until now, Tom had always been the most polite, the most charming, the most outwardly sweet and intelligent of boys (though his background was somewhat shady), and he had remained a great enigma to the adults at the orphange who could have sworn he had been there when little Kevin fell off that swing . . . But now Tom was being downright impertinent, and it was even more of a shock than hearing him scream at no one.

Tom breathed deeply and said accusingly, "I heard you! You want to send me away!"

"Tom . . ." began Mrs. Dean anxiously while Pastor Givings nervously polished his glasses on his flared sleeve.

"NO!" Tom bellowed. "Don't feed me your lies! I'm sick of being passed back and forth -- doesn't anyone want me?" and he fled from their presence and to his tiny, barren bedroom.


End file.
